I'm scared to death of becoming disabled.

Post Reply New Topic

What if somethoing happens to me and renders me a quadruplegic? What if I lose both my arms and legs AND my sight and my hearing and my voice box is destoryed? WOuld people have the common sense to write on my skin to communicate with me, or would they just not? WOuld they just leave me there?


What if I have a stroke one day and can't move? What if people think I don't know what is going on around me just because I can't move or talk, and ignore me or don't talk to me? What if I get an occupational therapist who treats me like a child and tries to make me read baby books and play with toys? If I refused and asked to read something more grown up, what if she refused to provide it for me?


What if I'm physically disabled and can't run away if someone gets power of attorney over me and therefore control over me?


What if I lose part of my brain and can't communicate? And what if people think I'm ret*d or childish because I can't talk or write (but can think okay) and treat me like a child or a ret*d, and I have no way of communicating with them to tell them not to do that?


I'm scared to death of not being able to communicate. Communication is the most important ability in the world.

I absolutely understand your fears. I wish I could comfort you. Somehow, some way there must be hope. Life is a hope. Over the years physically disabled people have earned more rights.

I take part in a drama group that is ran by disabled people. Everyone who acts with it has to be disabled. There are wheelchair users, people with voice boxes, people who can't hear well who have an interpreter, learning disabled people, Autistic people.

And I think over time people are being treated with more respect who have suffered strokes and other debilitating illnesses. Hm, so not sure what to say. But I'm thinking of you and hoping you feel better soon.

You forget another one, if you live a long happy life and in your late 60's your mind starts going. You become senile of sorts and can't remember anything, think everyone's trying to hurt you and go all cookie cutter on the world. Or if you live perfectly happy and end up in heaven, only to find out your in heaven, forever, and ever, day after day... with no real rest. That one always scared me... just living on forever, almost like highlander but without the pretty girls.

But one thing always remains a constant, things always could be worse - and your afraid? You should be afraid! The worlds scary. but personally speaking whether I end up a wheel chair, a arm chair, or a leather chair overseeing my minions... I shall be grateful for what I do have, and hold on to every last bit until the end.

Or just pay someone to kill me.

But perhaps that is a stage everyone goes through, realization or mortality, or immortality, or a effort consciously to reach out and figure out what the world has to offer and what you have to loose to it... But overcoming the hurdles life throws at you is part of the fun, right?

I always tell people, if I crash my bike bad, and cant use my legs anymore, I will take up wheel chair racing. There is a similar topic in the NV thread at the top. Another words, you take advantage of what you have.
What if you cant communicate you ask? I know plenty of people here with that trouble that get by just fine!!

Another thing I'm concerned about: if I get sick or injured, what if medical staff and family keep info about my condition from me, even though I have the right to know, because they think I can't handle it, either temporarily or permanently?


At least my boyfriend wouldn't allow that, because he knows ai want to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth and not be treated like a wimp.


But I'm still worried about that. You'd think thaqt doctors are obligated to tell patients the whole truth and nothing but the truth, RIGHT AWAY, but the truth is, they aren't. I read about this guy who was shot in the back of the head, and nobody told him he'd been shot for some time after he'd woken up from his coma. They kept him away from the TV and everything, thinking he couldn't handle it, and he couldn't talk so he had no way of asking what had happened to him. That makes me so mad! It was his business more than those people's, and he had a right to know!

What could they posible keep from you that you wouldnt know about yourself. The only thing they can keep from you about a condition is the words for it, and what do they mean. So as far as 'IF' in the low chance you become disabled, anything they might keep from you isnt going to change your condition.
Is the 'becoming disabled' thing a phobia for you? If so, something that might help, is by getting on youtube and watching stories about people who have had accidents and became disabled, but it has lead to great things for them.
The way I see it, as long as you are still living, you can still do great things with your life.
You say people treak you like a wimp? I am sure plenty of people think I am a wimp, but as long as YOU know your strong, what does it matter what they think.

That's not always true; there could be something going on in one's body that they don't know about.

You can't live your life in fear. Be thankful for the health and abilities you possess already and make the most of them now so that if the day comes that, God forbid, you're rendered disabled, you will have no regrets and no shame.

I worry about becoming disabled, because then we'd have no medical insurance. I'm the only one of us with access to medical insurance through my job. Both my husband and myself have chronic illnesses that require a lot of doctors visits and a lot of prescription medication.

I'm worried that if I can't stimulate myself (I do NOT mean sexually, though that is stimulating) people won't stimulate me enough. They'll just leave me in bed or in my wheelchair paralysed from the neck down and unable to speak due to a stroke and say that I have to learn to be in my wheelchair doing nothing. I know there are typewriters you can hold in your mouth and that, but I'm talking about before I'm un-paralysed enough to use one.

What if I get bombed by an isreali jet fighter some day and lose all my parts? eh?

What if an earthquake strikes my area and break all my bones?

What if a piano falls over my head?

life is full of possibilities , anything might happen to you but you can't live with catastrophic and apocalyptic what ifs.

What I want is for people to promise that they won't do those things to me.

Ana54, you wont be able to get a gurantee that medical staff wont be grating or patronising. The best you can do is to drill it into your loved ones to give you the benefit of the doubt. And acustom yourself to being annoyed at medical staff. And keep on reminding yourself that the odds are against it.
Nim, you don't have to be in your 60s to get alzheimers. You do have to particularly unlucky.

I showed my boyfriend my first post in this thread, so I think he knows. Maybe I should show him the whole thread, but would he get annoyed at me if I told him to read it?


I'm worried about being treated like an object by medical staff and family if I can';t move.

Hey, do any of you have an advance directive? Can you put stuff like this in it? Like, "Talk to me if I can't move or talk"? Or, "Lay me out until I start to decompose before autopsying me, to make sure I'm dead"?


How do you get a permanent advance directive? Do you just ask to see your medical records and then write it in the advance directive section?

I think its called a living will.